Iraq's judiciary said Sunday it lacks the authority to dissolve parliament as demanded by populist Shiite Muslim cleric Moqtada Sadr, who is engaged in an escalating standoff with political rivals.

Followers of Sadr, in defiance of his Shiite rivals of the pro-Iran Coordination Framework, have been staging a sit-in protest at Iraq's parliament.

In the latest twist to the political turmoil, the firebrand cleric has urged the judiciary to dissolve parliament by the end of this week to pave the way for new legislative elections.

Funerals were held in two Cairo churches Sunday evening for 41 victims of a fire that ripped through a Coptic Christian church during mass, forcing worshippers to jump out of windows.

The blaze, blamed on an electrical fault, hit the Abu Sifin church in densely populated Imbaba, a working class district west of the Nile River, part of Giza governorate in greater Cairo.

Hundreds gathered to pay their respects in and around the two Giza churches where clergymen prayed for the victims, according to AFP correspondents.

Large parts of the United Arab Emirates were hit by dust and sandstorms on Sunday as authorities urged caution on the roads and battened down for expected heavy rain.

Homes and landmarks in major cities were caked in a fine layer of brown dirt and visibility plunged in the latest adverse weather following a series of choking dust storms around the Middle East.

On Saturday, Abu Dhabi's official media office urged motorists to "avoid driving unless absolutely necessary". Visibility was below 1 kilometre (0.6 miles) in Abu Dhabi and Dubai on Sunday.

Iran has put on trial the reformist politician Mostafa Tajzadeh, who was previously jailed and arrested again last month accused of undermining state security, local media reported.

The 65-year-old -- who last year made an unsuccessful bid for the presidency as a reformist and "political prisoner for seven years" -- went on trial in Tehran on Saturday, said the judicial authority's news agency Mizan Online.

"Mostafa Tajzadeh's hearing was held at Branch 15 of Tehran's Revolutionary Court" before judge Abolghassem Salavati, it said.

Oil giant Saudi Aramco on Sunday unveiled record profits of $48.4 billion in the second quarter of 2022, after Russia's war in Ukraine and a post-pandemic surge in demand sent crude prices soaring.

Net income leapt 90 percent year-on-year for the world's biggest oil producer, which clocked its second straight quarterly record after announcing $39.5 billion for Q1.

Aramco's massive Q2 windfall was the biggest quarterly adjusted profit of any listed company worldwide, according to Bloomberg.

To feed and cool his buffaloes, Hashem Gassed must cross 10 kilometres (six miles) of sunburnt land in southern Iraq, where drought is devastating swathes of the mythical Mesopotamian Marshes.

The reputed home of the biblical Garden of Eden, Iraq's swamplands have been battered by three years of drought and low rainfall, as well as reduced water flows along rivers and tributaries originating in neighbouring Turkey and Iran.

Israeli police Sunday arrested a suspect in a pre-dawn shooting spree targeting a bus just outside Jerusalem's Old City that wounded eight people, including a pregnant woman and several US citizens.

"The terrorist is in our hands," police spokesman Kan Eli Levy told Israeli public radio hours after the bloody attack not far from the Western Wall, the holiest prayer site for Jews.

Seven people were injured, two of them critically, after a shooting attack on a bus in Jerusalem's Old City, Israeli police and medics said early Sunday.

"The police were informed of a shooting of a bus ... Police have cordoned off the scene and are searching for a suspect who fled," the police said.

Israel's emergency medical services, the Magen David Adom (MDA), called the incident a "terror attack in the Old City".

Two rival Shiite Muslim blocs are holding competing sit-ins in Baghdad, ramping up tensions in conflict-weary Iraq, but shopkeeper Mustafa says he's more worried about how he's going to make a living.

"We have no work," said the man in his forties as a lone fan pumped hot summer air around his clothes store.

The two camps are "defending their personal interests", he charged, declining to provide his surname due to security concerns.

Political deadlock has left Iraq without a new government, president or prime minister following general elections 10 months ago.

In Tehran's book market, the stabbing of British novelist Salman Rushdie was on everyone's lips Saturday, but only those who approved of the attack dared to speak publicly.

The author, who spent years in hiding after an Iranian fatwa ordered his killing, was on a ventilator in hospital after the attack Friday at a literary event in upstate New York.